Magnetoreception and navigation in vertebrates: from biophysics to brain and behaviour

For centuries, humans have been fascinated by migratory animals being able to find their way over thousands of kilometres with a precision unobtainable for unaided human navigators. The central aim of SFB 1372 is to achieve a comprehensive and multidisciplinary understanding of magnetoreception and vertebrate navigation all the way from the biophysical mechanisms to the natural behaviour of navigating animals, covering every step in between.

To achieve this, we need to understand how magnetic cues are sensed, how magnetic information reaches the brain for processing, how multisensory navigation-relevant information is integrated in the brain, whether neural correlates of map and compass information exist beyond a lab environment of a few square metres, what the genetic basis of migration is, and how cue manipulations and different sensory strategies affect navigation behaviours and global migration patterns.

The SFB is structured into three overlapping and interconnected sections representing the three steps that the navigation-relevant signals take within the animal: Signal Detection (projects Sig01 to Sig06), Neural Processing (Neu01 to Neu06) and Navigation Behaviour (Nav01to Nav07).

In addition, we generated genomic data and develop genetic tools from which many other projects will benefit strongly. The highly multidisciplinary approach is needed to bring about the quantum leap in our understanding of magnetoreception and navigation in vertebrates that we expect to achieve.